On Sept. 12 last year, the Taoyuan District Court sentenced Liang Tsung-ming (梁崇銘) to life in prison for killing and decapitating his mother in 2018, even though the judges said that his mind was weakened at the time because he was under the influence of drugs.
However, on Thursday last week, the High Court reversed the ruling, acquitting Liang, saying that he was not in control of his actions at the time of the incident due to drug-induced psychosis.
Although that was not the final verdict, it raises the question of whether a murderer can be exempted from criminal liability because they are under the influence of drugs.
According to Paragraph 1, Article 19 of the Criminal Code, “an offense is not punishable if it is committed by a person who is mentally disorder [sic] or defects and, as a result, is unable or less able to judge his act or lack the ability to act according to his judgement.”
If a person’s judgement or control is merely reduced when committing an offense, they are considered capable of limited criminal liability and the punishment may be reduced in accordance with Paragraph 2 of Article 19.
However, if a person consumes alcohol or takes drugs to evade criminal liability by inducing a state in which they are deemed incapable of bearing criminal liability or having limited liability in order to reduce or avoid punishment, would that constitute a legal loophole?
To prevent such a scenario, amendments to the Criminal Code in 2005 added a third paragraph to Article 19: “Provisions prescribed in the two preceding paragraphs shall not apply to a person who intentionally brings the handicaps or defects.”
Intentionally inducing a state of temporary insanity to avoid punishment is called actio libera in causa and should not be exempted from punishment or incur a reduced sentence.
This means that the first two paragraphs of Article 19 should not be applied to Liang, even if he were incapable of bearing responsibility when committing the crime, as his condition was self-induced.
This was the prosecutors’ argument and the reason they sought the death penalty.
Nevertheless, the prerequisite of Paragraph 3 of the article is too vague. To prevent it from being interpreted as having no restrictions, judicial practice stresses that there must be awareness of a crime to be committed if a suspect who acted while under the influence of drugs or alcohol is to be convicted. If such awareness is not present, the paragraphs granting acquittal or a reduced sentence might still apply.
It is difficult to prove pre-existing awareness, as it exists only in a suspect’s mind.
In the matricide case, it would be extremely challenging to prove that Liang was planning, or could have foreseen, the murder of his mother, even though there was not much time between his taking the drugs and committing the crime.
Based on the principle that doubt goes in favor of the defendant, the judges had to rule out that Liang had induced a state of temporary insanity to avoid punishment. Consequently, the paragraphs allowing exemption or a reduced sentence could still be applied.
Perhaps the judges adopted an extremely restrictive interpretation to determine the defendant’s intent, based on the principle that all exculpatory factors must be considered. It is worth considering whether that interpretation went beyond the remit of the law.
With the July 22 passage of the Citizen Judges Act (國民法官法), similar offenses warranting a prison term of at least 10 years from 2023 will be tried by a collegiate bench formed by three career judges and six lay judges — called “citizen judges.”
Faced with such obscure legal language, special terminology, judicial interpretations and psychiatric assessment reports, it is highly questionable whether lay judges will be on an equal footing with career judges.
Wu Ching-chin is an associate law professor at Aletheia University and the director of the university’s Research Center for Criminal Law.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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